I am not like any ordinary world
The filly looks away from him as he steps closer. There is a wariness in her gaze. If he knew the reason she turns from him (because foreboding fills her body with a sense that all she loves might be lost) then he go to her and whisper in her ear. He would warn her to listen to that small tremor of anxiety. For losing everything can happen so frighteningly easily. Loss comes with a deft blow that leaves one reeling.
Yet, maybe he wouldn’t whisper that in her ear. Maybe he would say nothing at all because he does not remember yet what he has lost. Leonidas would look at her with the same wariness as she watches him and he would listen to his own small voice of foreboding that sees shadows in his memories and grief, so much grief. The shadows only have names now. The shadows mean nothing to a boy at all. He has grown too much since his family left him. He has spent more time alone that he has within his parents’ and sister’s embrace.
In the end, Leonidas does not know why she looks away from him and he does not think to wonder why. Instead, as she turns from him, he moves closer, closer. He steps neatly over root and furrow. The leaves barely rustle as the boy steps over and through them. The language of the woodland is in his blood, his soul. He knows how to walk in a way that is as quiet as a gentle breath.
Finally she lifts her head, until her horn tips up and away from him. His own muzzle draws in toward his chest. Young, forming muscle swells at his crest - still so much growing to do and yet, so much is already done. He has had to grow fast and Time magic is upon his side. All of Leonidas is early and fast. Bulbs set for spring, suddenly burst through the ground at his feet, blooming into flower, coaxed into premature life by his magic. Leonidas thinks nothing of it. Things have always been blooming and dying prematurely around him. When he concentrates he can twist the magic to his will and find food in deepest winter when no plant wishes to blossom at all.
Aspara, the girl returns. Something within him aches as he looks at her, her body similar to his. And the sound of her name. That is what makes him hurt. Her voice, young like his, young like a girl, like… nothing. There is nothing, just a name, just Aster. Apsara, like Aster. He exhales and that empty part of him feels so suddenly like a chasm again. Apsara’s eyes are lovely and wide and sad. He likes her eyes. They feel like a part of him.
He is not lost. ‘Me either, Apsara,’ He tries out her name upon his tongue. Hers might be the first name within his mouth since his family were lost. The boy-king wants to say her name again, it feels nice to hold a name there between lips and tongue. But he doesn’t, she is already looking away, stepping away, taking with her the scents of the city.
Leonidas moves to follow her but fireflies bloom out of the shadows. They dance together. Apsara stops in wonderment, a smile slips across her lips. The forest-boy would have thought nothing of the fireflies, he had seen enough of them, even over his short life. They get in his way and in his hair the moment twilight comes. No amount of swatting would get rid of them. Such is the life of a wild wood boy. But tonight is different. The way these fireflies move, the way the flutter of their wings stirs magic in the air. The way a girl is here, watching them with a smile upon her lips, awe pressing her teeth into her lip. He stares.
And he does not look away.
The fireflies morph, they arrange themselves into a horse, small and slight and beautiful. It drifts off the path upon which the children stand and away into the dark of the welcoming midnight wood. Something about Aspara is different when they go. She lunges forward and yet pauses. She looks back toward Leonidas, it is a strange effort to pull his gaze from her face. She makes it easier though as she shoots suddenly for him. Her muzzle presses roughly into his shoulder and -
Oh!
It is the first time he has been touched. Her muzzle is warm and soft though firm as she shoves him forward. Leonidas reacts as if she is lightning. It is startling, a touch after so long. His ears fall toward his skull as he leaps back, shying away less like a god and more like a deer. Wary, yet regal the boy skitters back wary. He huffs and his eyes blow wide, wide with alarm. His shoulder twitches, twitches, twitches, the skin reeling, his nerves electric.
If she saw the way he spooked and shied from her, it is not clear for she orders him, Lets follow them, and promptly disappears into the brush. “Aspara!” Leo cries after her. In his shock, in his reeling, he forgets how her name feels for a second time between tooth and tongue.
The boy king leaps nimbly into the brush after her. It is easy to hear where she goes for the way she clatters through the shrubbery. Leonidas follows, casting out his own command, ‘Wait for me!” It is not often a king is ordered by a stranger and he has not been subject to anyone in too, too long. Catching up with her, his long legs cover the ground easily, even in the darkness. A smile slips across his lips. A golden tine tips to tap against the elegant spiral of her horn. It rings like a bell and is a kind of touch he is much more comfortable with.
Through the forest they run and all the boy can think about his how his shoulder feels different and how he might like fireflies after all.
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